Nigerian Eagle Airlines, Kenya Airways sign code-share and interline pact

Nigerian Eagle Airlines, the national airline of Nigeria, has signed a code-share and interline agreement with Kenya Airways, the flag-carrier airline of Kenya.

The pact comes at a time when Nigerian Eagle Airlines – formerly Virgin Nigeria Airways – is looking for consolidating its presence and increasing its market share in the West Africa sub-region.

The code-share and interline agreement between Nigerian Eagle Airlines and Kenya Airways, which takes effect on October 25, 2009, will offer the customers of the two carrier better connection options and extended travel and in East Africa, West Africa, and southern Africa, according to Titus Naikuni, CEO of Kenya Airways Group.

In a statement, Naikuni said the pact will provide a “seamless and superior connecting product” for the market of Kenya Airways, which has embarked on a route expansion drive. He described Nigerian Eagle Airlines as “the most promising young airline” in Nigeria.

The interline and code-share deal will enable the passengers of Nigerian Eagle Airlines to connect to Africa and the rest of the world through the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, the main hub of Kenya Airways. The destinations that could be thus connected include the European cities of London, Paris and Amsterdam as well as cities in Asia such as Mumbai, Dubai, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

Following the signing of the code-share pact, Nigerian Eagle Airlines and Kenya Airways will try to synchronise their schedules and coordinate the handling of luggage, resulting in transfers between connecting flights taking lesser time.

According to Titus Naikuni, the Kenya Airways-Nigerian Eagle Airlines accord shows that Africa-based airlines are currently cooperating more than before in order to develop air transport in the continent.

The two carriers, he added, will feed traffic both ways to utilise further the opportunities offered by the code-share and interline deal, based on their reliability as well as their strong regional, domestic and global route networks.

Dapo Olumide, CEO of Nigerian Eagle Airlines, stressed that the code-share pact will herald the future of civil aviation in Africa.

Kenya Airways, which started operations on February 4, 1977, operates scheduled services within Africa as also to destinations in Europe and the Indian subcontinent. Having one of the youngest fleets in sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya Airways flies over 3 million people each year.

Kenya Airways recently launched non-stop flights from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi to Ndola (Zambia), Gaborone (Botswana), Libreville (Gabon) and Brazzaville (Congo).

A code-share agreement is defined as a commercial arrangement in which two carriers sell seats on the flights operated by one of them. This is also a practice by which a flight that an airline operates is jointly marketed as a flight for one or more other airlines.